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Things haven’t been easy for Arash Sigarchi. At the age of 27, he was sent to prison for writing articles criticizing the leader of the Islamic Republic and aspects of life in Iran. He was first sentenced to 14 years, charged with "insulting Mr. Khamenei in his writings, collaboration with hostile governments, giving interviews to foreign media, and incitement of the public mind." His sentence was subsequently commuted to 3 years, of which he has served 14 months. During his time in prison, he found a lump in his mouth. It was cancer. He underwent an operation to excise the tumor as a result of which he lost part of his tongue.
Sigarchi began his career in journalism when he was just 15 years old. A native of the Gilan province of northern Iran, he gained acclaim for his work as editor of Gilan Emrooz, the province’s major newspaper. When he was no longer able to publish the kind of stories he wanted to in the paper, he decided to start a blog called Panjereh Eltehab, which means “window of anxiety.” For his courage and dedication in the field of journalism in Iran, Arash Sigarchi received the Hellman/Hammett award in 2007.
(from IJNet interview)

Cancer treatment

My Wife and my Cousin , After my big surgery

Monday, July 28, 2008

Islamization of Universities under Mesbah Yazdi's Guidance

Minister of Education Announcement:

A year after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that the general atmosphere of ‎Iranian universities is “governed by secularism,” the ninth administration’s education ‎minister and several other figures close to the cabinet announced progress in the plan to ‎‎“Islamicize” universities under the guidance of ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and institutions ‎affiliated with him. ‎In recent years, radical right-wingers and especially Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have ‎repeatedly attacked universities for being “un-Islamic.” On one occasion, while speaking ‎to a group of university students, Ahmadinejad denounced Iran’s modern education ‎system for being ruled by secularism in the past 150 years, and called on students to help ‎him revamp the country’s educational system. A few months after Ahmadinejad's ‎remarks, ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who directs the Imam Khomeini Education and ‎Research Institute, blamed weak planning in the country's affairs as well as conditions in ‎universities while meeting with central committee members of the Imam Khomeini ‎Relief Foundation (Komiteh Emdad Imam Khomeini), noting, “these universities don’t ‎teach students anything other than how to badmouth the regime and at times even Islam.” ‎Now, following a plan devised by Mesbah Yazdi's organization, recent reports reveal that ‎the education minister is attempting to fully Islamicize universities. At the beginning of ‎the week, education minister Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi, who was attending the tenth ‎grand conference of Basiji university lecturers from across the country in Mashhad ‎alongside Ahmadinejad, commented on the administration’s plans to Islamicize ‎universities: “Currently, several research institutes such as the Imam Khomeini Education ‎and Research Institute [directed by extremist cleric Mesbah Yazdi] are working on this ‎issue. The cost of the plan is not important for us, because it is the end result that matters ‎to us.” ‎Denying any knowledge of the new “forced retirement of university professionals” the ‎education minister announced that many Basiji professors had joined the country's ‎institutions of higher education since the beginning of the tenth administration in 2005. ‎Zahedi said, “In the past three years, many university presidents have been replaced, and ‎most of new presidents are either members of the Basij or have shown with their actions ‎that they are committed to and supportive of the administration.” ‎While those close to the Ahmadinejad administration identify “Islamicizing universities” ‎as the “ninth administration’s concern,” universities are under pressure through the ‎summons and detention of students, as well as dismissal, removal or forced retirement of ‎prominent professors. ‎Last Saturday, Morteza Aghatehrani, who is known as the “cabinet’s ethics teacher” and ‎is currently serving as Tehran's representative in the eighth Majlis, noted, “our concern is ‎to Islamicize universities,” adding, “the universities' committed students are not satisfied ‎with the culture and image of university.” A few days prior, commenting on content of ‎university textbooks, Aghatehrani had said, “university textbooks are neither native nor ‎Islamic.” ‎According to Ketabnews website, this pro-administration cleric who is now a member of ‎the Majlis education and research committee also claimed during last Thursday’s speech ‎at a conference that “social sciences taught in the country’s universities are western and ‎originated in the West.” ‎In recent weeks, many prominent figures closely associated with the administration have ‎lamented the un-Islamic character of Iranian universities. Minister of Culture and Islamic ‎Guidance Saffar Harandi, compared in a speech the “Cultural Revolution” of 1980 with ‎today’s events, saying, “At that time, our revolutionary students believed that pre-‎revolutionary studies should not be taught to students by the same professors who were ‎the theoreticians of the old regime. We don’t want our universities to be the breeding ‎grounds of forces opposed to God and his religion.” ‎